Empty Chairs
by archergwen
Summary: In between "Journey's End" and "The Next Doctor," the Doctor makes an unexpected stop.


The TARDIS materialized in an empty restaurant.

The Doctor stepped out.

He had not been expecting this place. As he turned back to the TARDIS, to move on to where he was next needed, the Doctor swore he could hear a sad voice.

No lifeforms were in the restaurant; a scan with the sonic screwdriver told him that.

The voice was singing. And no matter how hard the Doctor tried he could not make out the words. They were human; they were English. But as soon as his Time Lord mind pinned one down the others slipped away.

With an aggravated sigh he wheeled towards a table, its four chairs resting upside down on its surface.

"There's a grief that can't be spoken."

He lunged at the nearest chair and slammed it upright on the floor. "Susan." He grabbed the next chair. "Barbra." Slam. "Ian." One chair for everyone he'd once traveled with and everyone he had lost.. He almost put down a chair for Sarah Jane, but didn't, leaving instead what would've been her chair on the table.

Slam. "Adric."

Davros was right. All these chairs...Slam. "Kamelion." The Doctor was always running, running from shame, from loss.

He growled. "There's a pain goes on and on." Another chair empty. Name after name... "Jenny." The daughter he could have taken everywhere.

The Doctor lifted a chair and paused. This one he gently set on the ground. "Rose," he whispered. His fingers lingered ever so slightly.

He left chairs up for Jack, Martha, and Mickey. He hoped to see them again, and not when time and reality were being destroyed.

The chair he turned with the greatest regret was Donna's.

He lifted one last chair. "River Song." He was unsure if he should put the the chair on the floor or not. She had died but he still had yet to meet her, to love her, to tell her his name.

He slammed the chair to the ground.

"Empty chairs at empty tables." He clutched the back of River's chair so tight it hurt. "My friends will sing no more."

He stumbled to where he could face them all, an invisible audience to his grief. For a moment, he thought he saw a face through the window, beneath the words "ABC Cafe." But he blinked and it was gone. He let out a cry and sank to his knees, curling up prostate before the chairs. "Oh my friends, forgive me." He thought a shadow flitted across the corner of his eye, but he could hear no one.

The Doctor stayed where he was, bowed in grief, for what seemed like a long time.

And then a young voice spoke from among the chairs.

"Their songs are finished."

"I know," he whispered in response.

"But yours continues."

"I know."

"You knew them all. Every empty seat. By remembering them you sing their songs."

The Doctor scoffed. "It is but an echo. And then what happens to their songs when I die? Everything has it's time, even I. And when I go they will be forgotten."

"No! One never knows how many lives they have touched unless they get a chance to see the world without them. How do you know that the trees don't sing of Jade? After all, don't the Ood sing of the Doctor and Donna? Your friends will not be forgotten. You will not be forgotten."

The Doctor jerked slightly at the light touch around his shoulders, like that of a close friend long-missing trying to comfort a much-changed comrade.

"There will be a day when your hearts will find peace and your soul rest. Until then, do not ask what your friends' sacrifice was for. They wished the universe to be a better place and you help that wish to be. And if anyone tries to throw their lives in your face, remember that every single chair knew what could happen, some more than others. They could see a bright world, just about to dawn. Can you hear their voices ringing with life? Can you hear them singing?"

His shoulders felt empty and cold as the voice left. "Do you hear your people sing?"

The Doctor remained still for a few moments, as if he could not believe what had happened. And then he leaped to his feet and raced to the door. He threw it wide and looked out into the empty street.

There was no one for miles.

As he turned back to the TARDIS, the weight on his hearts lifted, just a smidge. He would come back here again, when it was time to take more chairs down. But then, after now, it would be a ceremony of thankfulness, rather than private and overwhelming grief.

"Thank you," he whispered to the ABC Cafe, empty though it seemed to be.

And with a slightly healed Doctor, the TARDIS disappeared.

* * *

><p>"Jenny, why are you back so soon? Where's the Doctor?"<p>

"He's not coming."

She had seen and heard almost all of his grief-stricken movement. She had sat in the chair he had chosen in her memory.

"Didn't you see him?"

"I did. I did."

"Then why-"

"It was not a moment for me!" Jenny interrupted. "He needed to grieve. He needed to mourn everyone else and I would've taken away from that." She paused. "I did speak to him. I think I helped him. One Time Lord to another."


End file.
